Weird Springfield
by facelesscreator
Summary: A thusfar small collection of frights and delights to strike your fancy. CH. 2- A child in need...
1. the Night Before Halloween

Moe's Tavern bustled at this time of the year. To drink themselves blind and stumble home, surrounded by grotesque horrors - burnt heretics screaming through the windows, lynched innocents strung from the lamps that give sweet light, and murderous, cannibalistic ghouls dwelling amongst the God-forsaken dead of the boneyards they walk through - was a popular pastime for the Springfielders of late October. At least, it was a popular game for the kids with fake IDs and some good pills to swallow.

Some customers loved the sort of night like that, a kind where you can just hear the sounds of a car shattering a sheet of glass behind a spread of human flesh. Any night which can bring forth such imaginitive experiences deserves a few cheers, they believe, and so they would clang the billiard balls, spoke of dreary and needful things. Some would even become too excited, too high off the night, and clash wits, or fists. Those were the clientel Moe had now; he knew that, before the end of night, more than one would be left lying on the layer of spillage, human excrement, and rat urine protecting the tile floor. Their "friends" would never bother to carry them home, the poor bastards. And Moe would once again be suspect when the bodies are never found. It wasn't Moe, of course, no, no, but the roaches - they demand the "leftovers" of Moe's evening...

...but that is another story entirely.

At nine o'clock Moe the bartender pulled the tap, pouring a Duff for his twelth customer of the still-young night. The young man squeaked up a "Thanks Moe" using three octaves of vocal range, which the bartender pretended not to notice. Money is money, he thought, though the law seemed to disagree. Of course, it is hard to respect something that made a chief out of Wiggum, so Moe inebriated his friends to their wallets' content.

Barney sat growing fatter by the hour, having not left his stool in approximately three. He looked across the bar to the squeaky voice and said, "Are going to finish that nacho plate?"

The boy looked nervous. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he said. "And that's an ash-tray."

"Oh, a wise-ass, are ya?"

"No..." his voice quivered.

"I'll learn you somethin'," said Barney as he tried to stand. He did. He then stompted over to the child who had been so rude, put up his best mean look, and got a very deep footprint in his face when the boy kicked him and sprinted out the door. Millions of years in the future, paleontologists studied modern footware by examining Barney's well-preserved death mask.

Five minutes later, Homer, the of-age regular, walked through the tavern door. Moe quit scrubbing his beer jugs. Barney awoke at the slam of the door, lifted his head off the bar, and ate a peanut to help clear the crust from his mind. The crust from his body shattered, falling to the floor, as he moved to sip his liquor. Barney had told Moe that he'd wait for some company as Homer or another drinking buddy to make his drunkeness complete. Here was the man of the hour. But you could tell from Barney's quashed face that something was awry...

Moe noticed Homer's blue pants swinging in an unussually calm and precise gait. He noticed the slight folds and creases of Homer's two hairs, and some curious new stains tainting his favorite white shirt. And everyone, absolutely everyone in the salloon, stopped to gander at the most startling trait: a rugged, blunt stub was all that remained of his right arm, and in its place was stapled a bloody chicken.

Homer took a seat by good pal Barney. Moe couldn't find words to say; should he call an ambulance? Should he ask if he should call an ambulance? Should he ask if he should ask if he should call an ambulance? Maybe it wasn't even real, but a clever trick of the Halloween spirit. That's probably what everyone else thought. But those people didn't see it so closely.

"Hey Homer," Barney finally uttered through his swollen, heel-shaped lips, "is there something wrong with you?"

Homer turned to meet the drunkard in his crusty yellow, veiny red eyes. Everyone hung on his words like fish on shark hooks. They all lightened when he began to chuckle. His chuckling grew into a full laugh, and the laughter into guffaws. Laughs sounded throughout the room, from every patron. Then he said, "Yes."

The laughter died instantly.

Barney replied, "I knew there was something different 'bout you, just couldn't figure it out. I won't pry, don't wanna be rude. Nice costume, though."

"Do you want me to tell you the story, Barney?" asked Homer.

"What story?"

"My story." Homer lifted his shirt, revealing an assemblage of scars of all textures, shapes and colors. The stains were no longer so mysterious. "I will tell you how I got these, and Abigail," he wriggled the chicken with his shoulder, "and how my family found itself on a lonely alley on Halloween day."

Abigail clucked, and with that Homer began his tale. It started innocently, that very morning. Soon it became intriguing. Moe listened intently, Barney listened placidly, and all the patrons edged closer and closer to the storyteller. Everyone who entered, to order a drink or use the bathroom or make a call, stood in the ring around Homer, whose amazing story could not be ignored. The room grew sad and elated with each twist and turn which preached a truth unto the world, crying for its beauty or paling for its horror. The story changed them, but they were glad to have heard it, to have arrived where they were, regardless of where else the trip had taken them.

"I then walked into this tavern, and I recounted my day." With these words Homer finished both his story and his eleventh drink.

For minutes no one said a thing. The ring disolved silently, its particles disappearing to whereever they needed to be.

Moe tried to continue his work while maulling over the whole thing when he glimpsed the clock. "My lord," he yelled, "it's four-in-the-mornin'! Everyone out! Out!"

Thus the youngsters did not shamble home in wasted terror - nor did they care. The adults climbed into their vehicles and turned the ignition with sobre precision and dexterity. The autumnal leaves of red, orange, and yellow seemed more like the fruits of starlight giving us life, less like the dieing byproducts of decaying organic material to be dissected in botanical med schools, if such a thing existed. Grass grew greener all around.

Homer walzed out before paying for his booze, but Moe didn't chase after. He merely watched as Abigail clicked at the air with her sleepy beak until she and her human drifted into evanescence.

A chill came wondering in, so Moe closed the tavern door. It was then, at that moment, for all the time he'd contemplated the depths of Homer's acount, that he realized that the story had _nothing_ to do with his scars, nor his chicken.

Oh well.

It might not have been what they'd wanted, what they'd expected, but it certainly wasn't waisted time. Whatever that story was, it was definately NOT a waste of time...

Moe killed the lights. He took half a step out the door, but couldn't continue. He felt strange - a way he'd not felt in years. That night, he helped the boozehounds and the poor fighters off the cold floor. He brushed them off, called taxis, and sent them on their merry way. The roaches, he decided, did not need feeding _every_ night. Finally, before stepping out, he killed the lights.

And Moe the bartender was never seen again.


	2. Time Flies

**TIME FLIES**

Todd Flanders lay within a hollowed log, appreciating the wonder his God-given hiding place. The smell alone would drive away most seekers! And where else would one find such a variety of molds, long tendrils to lick at one's face and short growths which felt hatching spider sacks under one's back?

Hopefully his brother would find him soon, though, before the itchy black juices seeped up into his pants.

"Todd!" the boy heard his father call. "To-odd!"

"Well, it was nice of you to hide me," said Todd in his mischeivous manner, climbing out of the log and back into his own backyard. There, he found Daddy standing, hands in pockets, with a smile, waiting on the patio.

"Here I am, Daddy!" Todd said as he ran to his father. "That sure was a fun game of hide-and-seek! But what took Rod so long?"

"Well, son, I could ask you the same question, because you've been gone for _seventeen years!"_

"Wha...?"

-the_ END...-_


End file.
